Announcements
by Toodleoo
Summary: Percy loves his little sister. Really, he does. It's just that he probably shouldn't have volunteered to help with the calligraphy on the invitations. Of course, that does mean spending a little time with Hermione...
1. Announcements

Everyone was already calling it the Wedding of the Century.

Everyone but the groom, that is, who was having a difficult time keeping up with all the pomp and circumstance. Puttering about in the library at Grimmauld Place with his soon-to-be brother-in-law, Harry pulled out a crate filled with ink bottles. He squinted, lifting one filled with an orangey red and another that appeared to be a simple black. 'I dunno about colours or anything,'

Percy began unpacking boxes upon boxes of ivory cardstock, embossed with family crests and ready to be handwritten. 'Are you certain that there haven't been designs drawn up already?' That didn't sound very like his baby sister, a woman who had, in part, been planning this event since she was roughly five years old.

Harry smiled sheepishly. 'I know there's a format Molly wanted us to follow for the wording of these, but other than that, I don't really care.' He picked up another bottle, holding it to the light. 'Does Ginny like blue?'

Percy sighed. _The things he did for family._

A huge fuss was made over every last detail: selecting the perfect location on the Hogwarts grounds, coordinating the time of the vows with the optimal angle of the sun, designing a menu sure to astonish all the guests. Harry clearly hadn't been kept abreast of all the decisions, so Percy pulled out the book his baby sister had compiled for him.

'Ah, yes,' the redhead said, flipping to the section set aside for all wedding correspondence. He found the mock-up for the announcement in front of those for the invitations and thank-you notes, and by coincidence, they were all to be done in a dee 'It's a fairly simple calligraphic stroke, so it shouldn't take too long for me to complete each announcement. A few minutes at most for each one.'

'Have I thanked you already for volunteering to do this, Perce?'

'Twice, but you needn't. Gin was always my favourite sibling,' he said. Which was true. Bill and Charlie had always run off together when they were younger abandoning their kid brother at home. Fred and George came along next, but they shared half a brain, and Ron was always trying to emulate them. Then Ginny came along, a whipsmart, sharp little sister who adored him. When she was little, she crawled onto his lap and demanded that he read to her. As she grew up, she sought him ought when the rest of his brothers tended to overlook him. She'd also cried miserably when he'd headed off for Hogwarts at eleven, and she was the first one to come barreling into him for a hug when he returned at holidays. Now that she was a grown woman, he would do anything for her, even if it meant learning calligraphy so that she had the wedding of her dreams.

What was dumbfounding was that Ginny was going to be the second Weasley child to marry. Percy always thought that she'd be the last one to go, or that there would never be a man good enough for his kid sister, but then Harry showed up, and the rest all fell into place.

'Here's the guest list,' Harry added, passing over a scroll. 'Your mum is... er... a really, _really_ thorough woman.'

Percy eyed it warily as he began to unroll the thing. He gulped as the names just went on and on. 'How many people did you say were coming?'

* * *

Eight hundred and forty-nine guests.

Which meant eight hundred and forty-nine announcements. It had taken Percy the better part of the weekend to finish all of them. He had holed up in a leather armchair in the library, flipped the wireless on, and methodically plodded through the entire list.

It was the single most boring weekend of his life, and this was from a man who had once measured and catalogued cauldron bottoms for the hell of it.

* * *

The next weekend, Percy Flooed over to Grimmauld Place to begin the invitation. _Might as well get it over with_ , he figured. If the announcements had taken two twelve-hour days, the invitations were going to take three or four times that in sheer man-hours. Percy figured that three or four weekends should do it.

'-course he wouldn't refuse! That doesn't mean you should ask it of him, Harry!'

Percy stopped dead in his tracks. Clearly, he was interrupting an argument, but that wasn't Gin ripping into Harry. Percy leaned into the hallway, only to spot a cloud of chestnut curls and a wagging finger aimed at the Boy Who Lived.

'How could you! After all he's done to make it up to the rest of the family, he shouldn't need to do anything else.'

And with that, he knew that they were discussing him.

'He offered,' Harry said, 'and they were so perfect, Hermione, that even you couldn't do it any better. Ginny was-'

Percy cleared his throat. Best to make his appearance known before this got any more awkward.

'Oh!' Hermione whipped around at the sound.

'Er...' Harry mumbled. 'You didn't... didn't...'

'Hermione,' Percy stated, needing to clear this up before she harangued her best friend any further, 'I did offer my services for the invitations, so I assure you, you may let Harry off the hook.'

Her nose wrinkled as she glanced between the two men, and she wrapped her arms across her body under her chest, framing her breasts rather nicely. 'You couldn't have known how long this was going to take then.'

No, he thought. Not a clue. He held his tongue and kept his eyes on her face, a difficult feat since she had lovely... proportions. Yes, that was it. Her body made mathematical sense.

'If you're still going to suffer through them, I'm going to help,' she called, pushing past both he and Harry as she headed for the library.

Percy wasn't going to argue with that.

* * *

It turned out that there _were_ things Hermione Granger was bad at.

He'd always heard the rumours about her flying prowess, and he remembered how she'd thrown a fit in the common room over Divination, but Percy had forgotten that Hermione didn't actually excel at everything.

She'd insisted on assiting him with the calligraphy, but it had only taken him a few envelopes to see the problem. Her loops were uneven, her ink globbed up unattractively when she crossed her t's, and her lines often sloped downward to the right.

These would never pass muster.

But Percy was no fool, and had no intention of telling Hermione that she was rubbish. Instead, he lined up all the envelopes he'd prepared next to the ones she'd done. He hoped that she would see the difference herself and simply stop.

She didn't.

After a dozen, Percy spoke up. 'Hermione,' he asked, 'where did you learn how to do all of this?'

Hermione put her pen down and looked over at him. 'What do you mean? I learned how to write when I was three. Cursive penmanship came along when I was six or seven, I suppose. Muggle primary school places a great deal of emphasis on that.'

'Oh,' Percy said, picking up a small knife to sharpen the nib of his pen, 'I didn't mean that. I meant calligraphy. I took a few weeks' worth of classes after Gin started to talk about the invitations, and it took me quite a while to feel comfortable with just how different it is to perform this kind of writing.'

He paused, waiting for the other shoe to drop. His words had been a tad passive aggressive, he knew that, but he didn't want to reprimand Hermione aloud for her shoddy invitations.

After a few moments of staring at the line of invites, Hermione gasped. 'Oh, shite. Bugger all!'

Percy blushed. He'd never actually heard anything like that from her.

Then she whacked him across the bicep closest to her-hard. 'Why didn't you tell me I was doing this all wrong?' Each word was punctuated by another smack. 'Percy Weasley! How could you?'

* * *

A few hours later, they had fallen into a comfortable routine. Having retired her pen, Hermione just stayed with Percy as he worked, chatting with him about anything and everything to help him pass the time. She also forced him to stop long enough for a picnic lunch they shared on the rooftop balcony. After a full day of writing, Percy felt refreshed rather than drained and bored.

Hermione was a pleasant diversion.

A very pleasant diversion.

* * *

On Sunday, she showed up again.

He hadn't been expecting her, but there she was, sitting in the kitchen at Grimmauld, munching away on some pastries she'd brought over from the shop around the corner.

She made him tea before they retreated to the library to work on the invitations again. Well, Percy did all of the writing, but Hermione entertained him through the hours. She told him stories of growing up Muggle, of her ballet lessons and of riding horses with her father. Told him about what it had been like when she discovered she was a witch, and asked him about growing up in a huge family. Asked him what he was doing and what he was interested in accomplishing, and really listened to him.

Gods, she was perfect.

She kept her distance when she spoke, allowing his hands free movement when he worked. But sometimes... he just thought she was...

Was she?

No.

A woman like Hermione Granger wouldn't flirt with him, would she?

Because she leaned in close when she spoke to him, and she laughed at his jokes, and she smiled at him. She cooed over the neat, clean hand he employed.

Before he knew it, he had completed all the calligraphy.

He'd thought it was going to take him at least two more weekends, but now, he was finished. Which meant that he wouldn't have the verbose and voluble Miss Granger at his disposal any longer, and that was really a shame.

 _Maybe he could invent some new forms of wedding correspondance to prolong things. Tell her there were traditional postcards mailed a month before the ceremony, and notes about the menu that needed to be mailed to all the guests._

As he was wrestling with lying to her about his progress, she was already boxing them up. 'You're remarkably efficient, Percy,' she said.

Damn him, but he was.

She sighed. 'I suppose you're finished now?'

He nodded, grim.

He wouldn't be seeing her again. There was no reason for her to meet him and talk to him and share tea with him.

'You know,' she said, tugging a bit at one of her curls. 'I was thinking that I'd like to learn calligraphy.'

He nodded. 'I can give you the location where I took my classes, Hermione.'

'Oh!' she exclaimed, her voice soft. She flushed a delicious shade of pink. 'I was thinking of _private_ lessons.'

Percy looked at her, hope in his eyes. _Did she mean what he thought she meant?_ He distracted himself by taking a long, slow draught of his tea. It was cooled now, but it kept him from saying something stupid in return. He didn't want to read too much into what she was saying, and he'd never been good with double entendres.

She spoke again, laying her hand on his arm as she looked him dead in the eye. 'And you have a very nice nib.'

* * *

 _Fin. (Probably? Or I may continue this...)_


	2. What Ron Doesn't Know

_A/N: This isn't a traditional narrative, but this continues the tale of Hermione and Percy from "Announcements."_

* * *

'Angelina.'

'No.'

'Luna, then,' Ron offered.

'I have never even spoken with Miss Lovegood before,' Percy replied, crossing his arms across his slender chest. He shook his head. 'If I were to walk up to her, in the presence of this company assembled, and kiss her for the duration of five seconds, she would protest.'

'You really haven't hung around Luna before. She might not even notice that your lips are on hers,' Ron stated. He glanced around the room for another target. After all, he'd won this bet, and now he just had to select someone for the prim and fussy Percy to snog in public as his penalty.

The bet itself had been fairly straightforward, having emerged from a disagreement between the brothers about the reason why Harry and Ginny had announced such a short engagement before their upcoming wedding. A seven-month engagement. Who was engaged for less than a year these days? It took time to plan the affair and order all the food and finery. Regardless, Percy had bet that the young couple was simply in love, while Ron's wager was for a bun in the oven.

The loser had to snog someone of the winner's choosing at the engagement party, a big affair with dozens of guests from Hogwarts and the Order of the Phoenix in attendance. Mrs. Weasley had been prepping the garden space outside the Burrow for weeks, and was now watching over all the guests like a mother hen over her chicks.

Percy just hoped this kiss managed to slip by the woman.

Ron's eyes settled on his sister-in-law at the drinks table. He'd made an arse of himself in front of her on more than one occasion, and it might be nice to settle the score amongst all his brothers. 'Fleur.'

'No,' Percy said, rejecting the idea outright.

'Why not?' Ron asked, a slight whine to his voice.

'Would you prefer a chart or an itemised list? One, she is already a member of our family. Two, Bill would murder me if I laid a hand on his wife. Three-and perhaps I should have listed this first, Fleur is a powerful witch in her own right, and has an arsenal of spells at her disposal to maim me before one iota of a second has passed. I have no desire to risk my own health for your amusement.'

Ron frowned. What was the fun in winning a bet against your older brother if he refused to carry out the terms of his loss? He looked around again for a bird.

One with curly brown feathers presented herself at the garden gate.

Ron grinned. 'Hermione, then.'

Percy's attention shifted to the young woman in question. Dressed in blue, she looked as delicious as ever. True, she'd kissed Ron once when they were trying to figure out if they'd ever work, but that had never turned into anything. How could it? She and Ron made no sense. To Percy, however, she was ideal. Feminine and whipsmart, ambitious and caring, he'd admired her for years. He'd even made inroads with her of late, a few late evenings working together on some projects for Gin and Harry's wedding, but assaulting her in public would undoubtedly set back their budding... could he call it a relationship? He wasn't sure. Whatever it was that they had, it was too new to stand up to public scrutiny.

Percy swallowed. 'Hermione... Granger?'

Ron snorted. 'Do you know another?'

This was met with a silent glare.

'Listen, Perce, you've refused all the others, but you can't do that forever,' Ron said, poking his brother in the chest. 'I still won, didn't I? You've got to snog someone here for a minimum of five seconds. I say it's her.'

Percy narrowed his gaze at his kid brother and shrugged. 'Fine. Miss Granger it is.'

* * *

So that was how Percy Weasley ended up kissing Hermione Granger in the middle of his parents' yard.

She'd been walking over to greet his Mum or put her wrapped gift down with the others or something, and Percy pounced. Before he lost his nerve, that is. He marched over to her, and before she had a chance to open her mouth, he took her upper arms firmly in hand, bracing her, before pressing a kiss to her lips. The encounter was awkward for every reason imaginable: the wrapped box in her arms bumped up against his ribcage, a dozen or more people were staring, and he'd somehow landed a little off-center when he first pulled her close, and couldn't figure out how to move smoothly into a better position.

And yet she didn't push him away, despite the fact that it was a terrible kiss.

Surely five seconds had passed, hadn't they?

Percy couldn't be sure.

He couldn't very well do anything else with his mum watching, so he just sort of stood there for awhile longer. Looking down the end of his nose, Hermione appeared quite confused. Percy took a step back, ruffling the hair on the back of his neck while he sputtered out his apologies.

With one free hand, she grabbed his arm to stop him before he bolted. 'Percy...' she whispered. 'What was that?'

Percy leaned down to whisper his explanation in her ear. Before he'd had a chance to finish telling Hermione about what he'd hoped their first kiss would be like—how he'd been working up the courage to ask for a physical sign of affection on the first few dates they'd shared—she pulled away, shoved her gift into Percy's arms, and rounded on Ron.

Seeting, sparks of angry energy electrifying her every move, Hermione poked and prodded her old friend with one finger to the chest. 'Ronald Bilius Weasley, I am not a thing to be won! I am a person, you wanker!'

Percy grinned while Hermione took Ron apart in front of his mum, his dad, and all his other brothers. He was beginning to feel a little smug about this turn of events, but—

'And you!' Hermione shrieked, turning on him. 'You went along with this idiocy?'

Percy blanched, clutching the gift tightly. She wouldn't destroy the present she brought, would she?

'I had a higher opinion of your good sense, Percy!' she said, throwing up her arms in exasperation. She was making a big show of all her movements. More than usual. Percy suspected that Hermione was angling for something, but he couldn't quite tell what. 'Just for that, you're helping me with this.'

And with that, Hermione pulled him back into the Burrow to help her with some chore or other.

As soon as they'd made it into the kitchen, Hermione slammed the door. Percy loved a woman who knew what she wanted, even if that meant that he'd be chopping vegetables or rewrapping the gift or whatever it was that she had in mind.

He waited for her orders.

Instead, she plucked the box from his hands, set it on the counter, and wordlessly locked the door.

Percy swallowed as the woman he admired slowly advanced on him, backing him up against the cold wood.

When she was practically on top of him, she leaned up and wrapped a hand around the back of his neck. Her breath was hot on his neck, and he didn't breathe as she stood on her tiptoes to reach him. She wasn't timid or shy as she kissed him confidently, and the force of a small woman attacking him up against the door rattled him.

A nip at his lower lip, and he opened his mouth to her.

Ah, yes. This was more like it, all heat and passion. Wanting more, he lifted her in his arms and guided her legs around his waist. Then he flipped their positions, pressing her up against the door as she handed control over to him. She was soft and smelled of lavender, gasping for breath as his lips traced the column of her neck.

A few moments passed, and he set her down, feet on the ground once more.

When she spoke, it was a whisper. 'That was more along the lines of how I thought our first kiss should go.'

He settled his hands on her hips before he found his voice. 'Can I convince you to forget all about that display in the garden?'

'I don't know what you referring to, Percy,' Hermione said, eyes unnaturally wide as she tried to look ignorant.

'Good,' he said. He smoothed out the fabric on her dress and tucked a loose curl behind her ear. 'I didn't want what... what we have to be public without talking to you about your desires.'

'So you kissed me instead?'

He blushed. 'It really was just a frivolous bet, Hermione. I didn't think I stood a chance of losing. Your timing, though, could not have been better. I admit to feeling a great relief when you arrived, as I wasn't about to kiss another woman besides you.'

'Ron just happened to name me, then?' she asked, reaching up to straighten his bow tie. 'He doesn't know about us?'

'Not yet,' Percy said, emphasizing the last word. 'Not until you want him to.'

'Good,' she said. Hermione reached up, pulling Percy down into another kiss, this one softer than before. 'We'll tell everyone when we're ready. In the meanwhile, what Ron doesn't know won't hurt him.'

* * *

 _I think there might be a few more scenes in this, if people are still interested!_


	3. Form 2194

_Warning to all: Just to be safe, the rating has gone up to M here (sexual material). It's not terribly explicit, and it takes place off screen, but skip it if you'd like to!_

* * *

'We'd like everyone's attention for a minute,' Percy announced, Hermione's hand in his as they stood before his entire family. They'd waited until everyone was gathered around the Burrow table for Sunday supper. The lull before pudding seemed like as good a time as any to drop this bombshell, so—

'We're getting married!' Hermione cried, extending her arm to show off a sparkling new piece of jewelry.

Everyone started talking at once: Percy's father beamed at them both as he spoke of his pride, and his mum burst into a fit of hopefully happy tears. Bill passed his congratulations, Fleur cooed over the golden ring setting, and George winked at Hermione suggestively.

'Wait! What?' Ron asked, his gaze shooting back and forth between Percy and Hermione as he processed the words that had just been spoken. 'Wait...wait...You two are going to do what?'

'Get married, Ron,' Hermione stated.

Percy pulled her in close by his side, taking her hand in his. 'We were thinking about an autumn wedding.'

'But you're not even that serious about each other,' Ron said. He reached for the trifle bowl in the center of the table, grabbed the spoon, and ladeled out a sizeable portion, dropping it to his plate with a satisfying splatting sound.

The other Weasleys bit their tongues as Percy spoke up to defend his relationship with Hermione. 'I don't know what serious means in your book, but pursuing Hermione for the past seven months and fourteen days, particularly after being in her acquaintance for the last decade, seems fairly serious to me. Committing to her for the rest of our lives? Also serious. Additionally, we've discussed children as—'

Ron snorted. 'Hold your knickers, Perce. I just meant that you two don't even seem to like each other that much. To make a baby, you've got to do more than hold hands.'

George smacked his kid brother upside the head. 'Oy!'

Fuming, Hermione stood her ground. A sort of crackling radiated out from her fingertips and the ends of her hair, but she just barely managed to keep from blowing up at her friend. Her tone of voice was icy and perfunctory as she spoke. 'Not everyone needs to make a spectacle of themselves, _Ronald_.'

Not even that shut up the redhead. Neither did the large bite of trifle he was presently masticating. 'I'm just trying to picture breakfast in your house, 'Mione.' Ron began mimicking Percy's precise speech as he acted out an exchange between the couple. 'I can see it now: "Would you please pass the sugar, Ms. Granger?" "Perhaps, Mr. Weasley. Have you filled out form 2194, submitted it in triplicate and received appropriate authorisation?"'

Hermione rolled her eyes at Ron's antics and gave her fiancé's hand a gentle squeeze of assurance.

* * *

Later that evening, Percy found himself lying naked under the stars with the woman he loved, cuddled up on a woolen blanket they'd sneaked out from under his mother's watchful eyes. Two glasses, an empty Champagne bottle, and all their clothing lay discarded in the grass.

Hermione snuggled into his side in the afterglow of making love. Really, Percy thought, this was his favourite way to see her, when she was sated and content, drawing lazing circles onto his hipbones while the sweat of their skin dried in the cool summer breeze.

There were so many facets to Hermione Jean Granger, he knew. Many people thought they knew her, but they only saw what she let them see. All her housemates saw was that she could be fussy to a fault and that she could wrangle Harry into doing his homework most of the time. Her coworkers thought her exacting and precise, and the greater public knew that she was fearless.

They weren't wrong, per se, but they were all missing something. Percy felt a little smug, knowing that he knew more about her than the others did. He saw her when she was wild. When she was vulnerable. When she was—although nobody would ever believe it—silly.

Just as she saw him, all of him, and loved and accepted what she found.

'Did Ron's comments earlier bother you?' Hermione asked, her voice quiet. She propped herself up on one elbow and looked down at him.

'No,' Percy replied. The moonlight shone through her mane of hair and gave her skin an aethereal glow. 'They merely highlighted how poorly he knows us. How poorly he knows _you_. He can't even fathom the passionate woman you are, Hermione.'

'You're a good man.' She was silent for a moment as she studied the man she loved. An look of confession came upon her, and she tensed. 'Sometimes I'm afraid that I take life too seriously.'

'So noted,' Percy answered. He ran his fingers through her hair, tugging ever so slightly at her scalp. 'Whenever that is the case, please inform me. I'll find us another field, and we'll do this again.'

Giggling, Hermione added, 'Or a lake. You can take me underwater.'

'I won't even ask for an authorisation form.'

'If we ever come up with forms,' she said, pressing kisses to the center of his chest, 'let's leave them all over the house for guests to find.'

Percy laughed aloud. 'Forms for... for passing the sugar?' he asked, reaching over to tease her with his fingers. 'I do hope we can get more creative than that.'

She rose above him, swung her leg over his frame, and lowered herself down onto his body. 'Oh... oh,' she said, picking up her pace as the heat rose between them, 'I am a very imaginative woman. Lucky for me that you are a very _thorough_ and creative man.'

* * *

 _Perhaps one more scene of these two to finish this up?_


End file.
